Insignificant as those circumstances may appear to mere calculators of profit and loss, it cannot be denied that they have a powerful and pleasing effect on the refined imagination. To be treading that ground where Abraham trod; where Nahor the father of Rebecca lived; and where Laban, to whom Jacob fled to avoid his brother Esau’s resentment, and whom he served fourteen years for the love he bore to Rachel, was to me a circumstance productive of delightful sensations. How finely has that Giant of the Pen, Johnson, justified those sensations in his Tour to the Highlands of Scotland and Western Islands;—describing his emotions on visiting the famous Island of Iona, or Colombkill, he says—“We were now treading that illustrious Island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion, would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses—whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue!—that man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the Plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.”
The city of Diarbeker itself is situated in a delightful plain on the banks of the river Tigris, and nearly at its head; it is one of the richest, most trading, strong, and populous cities in Asiatic Turkey; and is adorned with many piazzas and market places in the Turkish style, and a large magnificent Mosque, formerly a Christian church; for Christianity flourished over this country so late as the sixth century. There is even now a sect, whose Patriarch still resides here: and they shew on the road near the town, a chapel where the holy man Job is said to be buried. This city is supplied amply with water by a canal cut from the Tigris, and has many caravanseras on both sides of the river.
Few countries in the world exceed that about this city for natural richness and beauty:—the bread and wine are excellent—the fruit beyond conception delicious—and my friend the Tartar took care, under pretence of supercilious hauteur, to tear in pieces a couple of fowls, and hand to me now a leg, now a wing, till I made the most delicious repast I ever remember to have eat in my life.
It is computed that there are resident in this city no less than twenty thousand Christian inhabitants, some of whom are of the Church of Rome;—and perhaps it is owing to that mixture, that the fair sex have more freedom, and the men more politeness and affability, than those of any other city in the empire:—the chief business there, is making that fine leather commonly called Turkey leather.
Figure to yourself, my dear Frederick, my Tartar guide, who was an admirable actor, sitting at a caravansera in state at his dinner, devouring excellent fowls, choice pillaws, and delicious fruit, in as great pomp as a Bashaw; and in order to keep up the semblance of authority over me, to favour my disguise, handing to me, who sat at humble distance, a part of his provisions.—You may form to yourself an idea of the scene; but all the efforts of imagination must fall short of the manner, the figure, the words, the looks, and the actions of the Tartar; sometimes affecting contemptuous pity, sometimes supercilious arrogance; sometimes brutal sternness, and sometimes the gentle blandishments of conscious superiority; and all in such a masterly style of performance, that I doubt whether Garrick himself, with all his powers of countenance, could outdo him. Critical though my situation was, and much as I was harassed with the corrosions of mental pain, the extravagant action and ludicrous pomposity of this man frequently overbore my prudence, and compelled me to laugh incontinently and loudly;—on all such occasions he would put his hands a-kimbo, draw up his eye-brows to his turban, screw down the corners of his mouth in the most rueful manner, and give a loud whew! with his eyes fixed in a stare at me, till entirely overcome with laughter, and ready to sink under it, I clapped my face between my hands, and, as well as I could, bowed in token of sorrow and submission; when threatening me vehemently, and at the same time uttering a lamentable expression of doubt that he was afraid he had had an idiot imposed on him, he would bustle about, direct the horses to be got ready, and order me to get on horseback, with many denunciations of severe treatment, and a thousand flourishes of his whip over my head.
As I have rode along musing upon the contemptible stratagems to which I was reduced, in order to get through this country, for no other reason but because I was a Christian, I could not help reflecting with sorrow on the melancholy effects of superstition, and regretting that that place, which in the times of primitive simplicity was called the Terrestrial Paradise; that place where God first planted Man after the Flood; where the god-like Abraham and the holy Job breathed the pure air of piety and simplicity; that place which from all those circumstances ought to be considered above all others as the universal inheritance of mankind, should now be cut off from all but a horde of senseless bigots, barbarous fanatics, and inflexible tyrants. And I could not help considering with melancholy concern, the blindness and infatuation of men, who, less earnest to accommodate themselves than injure others, shut out their fellow-creatures from that which they themselves will not use, and, while they suffer millions of the richest acres in the universe to be untilled, and spend their sweetness in the desert air, with wicked jealousy, and envy more than diabolical, begrudge to others the little spot on which they stand, and chase them as they would a ravening tiger from their country.
LETTER XXXVIII.
As we advanced towards the southward and eastward, in our way from Diarbeker towards Bagdad, I found the air became sensibly warmer, and observed that the disposition of the people grew more and more brutal. My guide’s conduct (for he knew them well) became proportionately artful, and my manners were of course to grow so much the humbler. I observed, however, that his authority continued the same, and that he seemed to exert it with greater rigour; not in severity or chastisement, but in exacting implicit obedience. Yet still he evidently acted with great caution and circumspection; for, in some districts, he either avoided the little villages by a circuitous route, or dashed through them at a very quick pace, while the gaping multitude considered us as on a dispatch of haste and importance—in others, he entered the towns without reserve, and left it to chance to decide whether we should be discovered or not. At some caravanseras he treated me with affected negligence, at others he made me eat with him and drink wine, of which, in some places, he himself drank copiously, and at others as scrupulously refrained from. And sometimes we lay at night out in the open air, rather than enter a town; on which occasions I found the weather as piercing cold as it was distressfully hot in the day time. Bred, as the man was, a mixture of slave and tyrant, I can suppose some parts of this conduct to arise from caprice; but as he was naturally kind, as many of those aberrations from the usual mode of travelling were attended with hardship and inconvenience to himself, and as my servant and the other Tartar were clearly of opinion he was right, I am rather disposed to believe that he, on the whole, acted from, principles of sound sense and policy.